Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Official Strategy Guide [Paperback]

Tim Bogenn (Author), Rick Barba (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 26, 2004

BradyGames' Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Official Strategy Guide includes the following:

THE MISSIONS: We'll guide you through three cities, a sprawling wilderness, and loads of action. Where to go, who to meet, and what to do to earn the most cash and respect.

THE MAPS: The most complete visual reference for San Andreas. Each city and territory is charted to detail every square mile. Find everything.

THE EXTRAS: The missions are just the beginning. We reveal a lifetime of diversions by covering all the odd jobs, extra missions, Unique Jumps, and Bonus Items San Andreas has to offer.

THE VEHICLES: A virtual showroom of every mode of transportation at your disposal.

THE SECRETS: Every city has its hidden spots that only the locals know about. We show you where they are. Find every gang tag, collect every oyster and horseshoe, snap every photo-op, launch every stunt jump, locate extra power-ups, and more!

BONUS FOLD-OUT: Required Odd Jobs Map!

Platform: PlayStation 2

Genre: Action/Adventure

This product is available for sale worldwide.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Take Two Interactive Software, Inc., headquartered in New York City, is an integrated global developer, marketer, distributor, and publisher of interactive entertainment software games and accessories for the PC, PlayStation®, PlayStation®2, Xbox™, Nintendo Game Boy Color, Nintendo GameCube and Nintendo Game Boy Advance. The Company publishes and develops products through various wholly owned subsidiaries including: Rockstar Games, Rockstar North, Gotham Games, Gathering of Developers, TalonSoft, Joytech, PopTop, and Global Star. The Company maintains sales and marketing offices in Cincinnati, New York, Toronto, London, Paris, Munich, Vienna, Copenhagen, Milan, Sydney and Auckland. Take-Two's common stock is publicly traded on NASDAQ under the symbol TTWO. For more corporate and product information please visit our website at www.take2games.com.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Brady Games (October 26, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0744004292
• ISBN-13: 978-0744004298
• Product Dimensions: 10.7 x 8.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #115,115 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars They should have modeled it after the Vice City guide..., December 15, 2004

By 

Steve Wainstead (Jackson Heights, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Official Strategy Guide (Paperback)

In addition to the things others have pointed out -- the inaccuracies in the maps and screenshots -- I find the guide hard to use. For example, the map for all the hidden horseshoes in Las Venturas is about 100 pages away from the screenshots of all the locations. The Vice City guide was a great guide, very high on usability. You'll spend a lot of time flipping back and forth with this one. The typeface is really tiny, and the mission descriptions tend to be very simplistic (at least the VC guide gave you some actual strategy tips; much less so, I think, with this guide).

It's big and slick and pretty to leaf through... but that can't justify its cost. You will find less than 50% of what the game has to offer without it, so you're stuck with buying it. Brady should publish a second edition with corrections, or at least publish online corrected versions of the maps and an errata page.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars One Of The Worst Guides Ever Written, June 28, 2005

By 

Matt Benecke (Brooklyn, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Official Strategy Guide (Paperback)

This strategy guide was so bad that I actually wrote a letter of complaint to BradyGames. I am a huge fan of their guides and purchase them for nearly every game that I own that has a BradyGames guide. The San Andreas guide, however, is an embarrassment to what is usually a very thorough and respectable company.

For someone who is simply playing the game and needs maps to get around then this guide should be perfect. If, however, you are a fanatic who is seeking to get 100% in the game then there are some major concerns that you should know about.

1) The number of Horseshoes that you need to collect is 50, not 100 as it is stated in the book.

2) Something like 4 or 5 of the photos for the Horseshoes are incorrect. I think they are taken from a Beta version of the game.

3) Nearly ALL of the Photo Op pictures are associated with the wrong locations.

4) There are at least a dozen weapons locations that are incorrect and three locations list weapons that do not exist in the game.

In terms of strategy and graphical content the guide is great, but outside of that I don't feel it is really worth the purchase. You can find many other guides that are more detailed (and correct!) for free if you look online.

29 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Some inaccuracies, especially where it counts, November 3, 2004

By 

Erik R. Impson (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Official Strategy Guide (Paperback)

Odds are you are buying this guide to complete the game to its fullest. While it will certainly get you closer to completion a lot faster than just running around aimlessly, you should know that there are a lot of errors in it.

It will get you through the missions okay, but the maps leading you to collectible items are horrible. One map has the items marked half an inch to the left of where they actually are. On another the numbers do not match up to the corresponding screenshots AT ALL, and it's the one where you need the screenshots the most. There are numerous other incorrect pictures and descriptions. And the screenshots are tiny! They wasted a ton of space printing artwork from the game, but skimped on the useful stuff.

Also, in several places you can see that they had a slightly different version of the game to work from. Detail on the maps is terrible and does not always match what's on your screen.

If you are looking for a guide I would still recommend it simply because there is nothing else out there. Just don't expect this to get you to 100% completion.